September 22, 2008

I got the list at the WaPo, where they are asking readers which nominee is most deserving, but I'm going to repeat that question, to get a special Althouse blog result. So answer here before you go there and see what the WaPo readers are coming up with. It's not easy!

61 comments:

This seems to be an unusually strong group, in the sense that I know who everybody is and they're all okay or better. A couple of years ago I wouldn't have known who Wanda Jackson Jackson is, but thanks to Theme Time Radio Hour I do. And she's the one I voted for. She deserves to be in the hall on the basis of that incredible version of "Riot in Cell Block # 9" (on the "Jail" episode, natch) alone.

YouTube is a fantastic resource. It's a great place to check out music to buy. I'm still looking through yesterday's 100 best gay albums at people/groups I never heard of. So far everything I've looked at gets 5 stars on YouTube. Lots of wonderful stuff on that list. So far, I learned about Scissor Sisters and the Magnetic Fields.

* takes down pants *

* checks for genital warts *

* pulls up pants *

* buckles *

Found a medley of hits for Anthony & Imperials. I had no idea they made all those songs.

Little Anthony is by far the best artist on that list. I remember seeing him at the Dunes in Vegas when he was reduced to working the lounge. Man could could that fucker wail. He did his own stuff and every great do-wop song in the songbook. Plus ton's of r&b. What a great preformer.

Chip, I remember hearing the emphasis on the first syllable in the early days. Like in metal. It's MEtal not meTAL. Changed over time or maybe there was a regional disparity in pronunciation for the first few years.

That the Stooges still aren't in the Hall of Fame is one of the world's most baffling injustices. Punk, grunge, metal, goth all owe them an enormous debt. "Down in the Street," from Fun House, will make you dance around like a two-year-old that just drank a Red Bull. Only square fools would disagree.

Re Ann and Victoria on Wolf: I know I've told this story before, but years ago, The Beauty Myth was a book that meant a lot to me. It really had an impact on how I thought and how I looked at the world. But then I re-read it a year or so ago, after Althouse dissed it - how could she be so dumb?! I thought. This was a terrific book! Except that it wasn't, as it turned out. I was surprised to find that the writing now struck me as hackneyed and the points she drove at lacked the vigor and bite I had remembered it having a decade ago.

It's funny how something can be so striking when you first experience it and it just doesn't hold up with time. By contrast, I first hear Tubular Bells and Sky 1 when I was, what, nine years old and nearly twenty years later they still hold up. For years, if you'd asked what my favorite Beatles song was, I'd have said Only a Northern Song. I recently got onto a bit of a Beatles kick and listened to a bunch of their stuff, but the song that I remembered as being really special came over as middling among their catalog at best. But then there's this. Some stuff is ephemeral; some permanent.

Out of several deserving choices, I picked Chic. In the 70s, like all suburban white boys in jeans, I hated disco. But now it's clear there were some great artists in that genre just like any other genre, and the Chic team was just about the best.

The most influential group on that list is Run-DMC. There's just the small problem that they didn't do rock music -- no, not even their cover of "Walk This Way".There are a lot of bands in the RandR HoF that do not fall into the 'rock' category. They may be awesome musical talents but they are not 'rock'.

Run DMC is the only group on the list that helped change a culture. Before they came out, white folks didn't listen to rap, it was just not done much. After them, and the Beastie Boys, rap, for better and worse, came into popular music.

You cannot give RUN DMC credit without including the Beastie Boys though. They were salt and peper bookends.